New Top Gear's Viewing Figures Fell to Another Fresh Low Last Night

At what point will Chris Evans’ misery stop bringing joy to the people? For me, it’s probably right about now. When will it stop being news? Time will tell. The third episode of revamped Top Gear drew in just 2.4 million viewers last night -- that represents the smallest overnight audience for the show for at least a decade, and potentially the worst numbers since 2002, when Jeremy Clarkson returned to the show.

That Germany’s opening Euro 2016 game against Ukraine was being televised at the same time on BBC One can’t have helped matters, but a not-very-nice trend has emerged. To put the latest figures into some sort of context, the opening episode of the new series drew in 4.3 million overnight viewers, with that falling to 2.8 million last Sunday.

Consolidated numbers will certainly be higher -- after all, more people would rather save a TV show for later than a football match -- but the grand relaunch is definitely not going to plan, despite generally positive online feedback. Last night's show was the one that should should have featured the Cenotaph doughnut stunt thing but didn't, though it still had Evans being sick at one point, which made up for the lack of controversy. [Guardian]